


Father's Joy

by novemberhush



Series: Father's Joy [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Babyfic, But really just lots of fluff and the dreaded sentimentality, Johnlock - Freeform, Just a great big ball of fluff, M/M, Might be useful if you were looking for baby names, POV Sherlock Holmes, Parentlock, With a teensy tiny little bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:14:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novemberhush/pseuds/novemberhush
Summary: John Watson is moving back into Baker Street, but he's not coming alone. He's bringing his daughter with him and Sherlock is thrilled. And terrified. Because he's never been good with people, with loving them. What if he can't love this little girl? After all, she's the daughter of the woman who almost took everything from him. But then, she's part of John Watson, too. And there's never been a part of John Sherlock couldn't love. (Well, questionable moustaches aside.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So the idea for this fic came about during a conversation with whereisjawn on tumblr and I promised her I would write it, and a promise is a promise, so here it is! I hope you find some enjoyment in the story and your teeth don't fall out from all the sugar! Thanks to whereisjawn for helping spark the idea in the first place and to my own partners in crime, Sairyn and writingtoreachyou, for the beta. Sadly I own none of the characters herein. And, yeah, I really am into the meaning of names so if you've got a baby that needs naming, I'm your woman! ;-)

Sherlock didn’t sleep last night. Hardly a novel occurrence. Sherlock and sleep have always had something of a precarious relationship. But last night was different. It wasn’t because he was up solving a particularly fascinating, fiendishly clever crime that he didn’t sleep. It wasn’t because he was in the thrall of some incredibly interesting, infinitely important experiment. It wasn’t even because Mrs. Hudson and Mr. Chatterjee from the café were indulging in a spot of much too loud, and at their age he would have said surprisingly strenuous, fornication. For which Mrs. Hudson’s hip was no doubt paying dearly this morning Sherlock surmises. He admires her vim, but, really, the reverse cowgirl (easily deduced from the distinctive rhythm the headboard sounded out as it buffeted the wall, although her lusty cries of “Hi-Ho, Silver!” and Mr. Chatterjee’s decidedly disturbing whinnying noises likely would have tipped him off anyway) is probably pushing it a bit at her time of life. And, yes, Sherlock knows what the reverse cowgirl is, thank you very much. All right, so not from any _practical_ experience, but Janine did so enjoy whispering into his ear in graphic detail _exactly_ what she’d like to do with him and try as he might Sherlock just can’t seem to delete the way too much information. Shudder.

  
No, Sherlock didn’t sleep last night because today is the day. The day John Watson moves back into Baker Street, returned to his rightful place (by Sherlock’s side, always by Sherlock) and all will be set right with the world.

  
Except he’s not coming alone this time. No, this time he’s bringing with him a little bundle of joy, isn’t that the expression? A little bundle of joy named Martha Abigail Lucy Watson, to be precise. To be known as Abigail every day, and you don’t have to be the greatest (only) consulting detective in the world to deduce that John chose those names.

  
Martha, for Mrs. Hudson, of course, from the Aramaic, meaning ‘the lady, or mistress’, as in lady of the house. How fitting for the senior bearer of the name, Sherlock thinks. He finds it strangely comforting to know that when Mrs. Hudson does finally shuffle off this mortal coil (hopefully not for many, many years yet and knowing her she’ll probably samba rather than shuffle even then) that there will be another lady of the house in his life ( _please let her be in his life_ ). Sherlock chooses to ignore that, from the Hebrew, Martha can also mean ‘bitter’ because he knows that is not the meaning John was going for. Bitterness is a paralytic, after all, and John is nothing if not a man of action. A man who has always been motivated by duty, compassion and love.

  
Then Abigail. Ah, Abigail. From the Hebrew, meaning ‘father’s joy’. _Definitely_ a name chosen by John Watson, sentimentalist - and the bravest, kindest, wisest human being Sherlock has ever had the good fortune of knowing.

  
And, last, but certainly not least, Lucy. From the Latin, meaning ‘light’ or 'light-bringer’. An obvious allusion on John’s part to Sherlock’s having called him a 'conductor of light’. Yes, _confirmed_ sentimentalist. And if Sherlock had felt a certain warmth spread through him when he caught the nod to him in the naming of John’s daughter, well, it was practically sweltering in London that day, that was all. And the dampness in his eyes and the lump in his throat were a previously unmanifested, sudden susceptibility to hay fever. Nothing more, nothing less. No matter what the knowing look on John’s face thought it knew.

  
But Sherlock hasn’t met the newest addition to the Watson family yet. (He tries not to think to _his_ family because that would be presumptuous.)

  
There had been too much going on since the day she had made her entrance into the world, a little ahead of schedule, for there to be time for introductions. Mary had gone into labour early, perhaps under the strain of having caught wind of the fact the CIA had discovered her new identity and intended making her face justice for her crimes and betrayals, one way or another. They would’ve preferred to take her alive, but the alternative was not an unacceptable outcome to them. Mary disliked both options, naturally, and no doubt had several contingency plans in place in the event of just such a situation arising. But, before she could put any of them into effect, her daughter decided to put in an appearance ahead of time, maybe not thwarting, but certainly delaying, her mother’s escape. John’s own arrival at the hospital was just in time to witness that of his daughter into the world, but there was no time for cuddles and photos and bonding with Mum as she was whisked away to an incubator in the neonatal ward.

  
Sherlock had gone to the hospital, ostensibly to support both the new parents. Everyone knew he was really only there for John, of course, the mystery of Sherlock’s heart having been solved long ago; the solution, an unpretentious ex-army doctor, small of stature, but with a heart as stout as English oak. Before he could meet the infant, though, Mycroft and his goon squad had arrived to place the new mother under arrest.

  
“Apologies for the timing, Dr. Watson, but your wife’s former employers are being _most_ insistent on her return and they _are_ our greatest allies after all. The 'special relationship’ must be maintained. You understand.”

  
Narrowing his eyes Mycroft had looked meaningfully from John to Sherlock then back to John again. “Hmm, yes, I do believe you understand the importance of ’ _special_ _relationships_ ’, and your wife’s rather inconvenient habit of getting in the way of them. Perhaps her arrest and deportation will be more of a relief to you than to me after all. Oh, and I believe congratulations are in order! A daughter! How _sweet_. I’m sure she’ll be a great comfort to you in the days and months ahead.”

  
Sherlock had only beaten John to the punch, quite literally in this case, because he was standing closer to Mycroft. The clearly audible crunch of bone as his fist connected with his older brother’s nose was one of the most satisfying sounds Sherlock has ever heard and was promptly squirrelled away in his Mind Palace to be brought out and enjoyed vindictively every now and then.

  
The goons were disappointed, however, when it was discovered Mrs. Watson had already made good her escape from the maternity ward, abandoning her newborn without so much as a backward glance. Sherlock knows that in his kinder moments, of which there are still many, his capacity for hope, courage and fortitude in the face of everything life has thrown at him seemingly never-ending, John tells himself Mary left her daughter behind out of love. He also knows that in his less kind moments John suspects his greatest treasure was viewed by her own mother as a burden that would only hold her back and had been discarded without a second thought. Either way, they both know to be grateful that Mary left her daughter behind and hadn’t tried to use her as a bargaining chip.

  
And now they are moving into Baker Street. Moving in with _Sherlock_. Dr. John Hamish Watson and Miss Martha Abigail Lucy Watson. Sherlock is thrilled beyond words, he really is. And more than a little terrified. Because he’s never been good with people. Never been good at loving them. Only a handful have ever successfully made it into his affections, most notably John Watson, and rationally Sherlock knows this child is a part of John (the DNA test confirmed it) and there’s never been a part of John Sherlock didn’t love (well, all right, maybe not that moustache, but other than that). So why should she be any different? But there’s still that damn niggling, minuscule percentage of doubt worrying at him like a stone in his shoe because she is also part of _her_. Mary Morstan. Or Watson, or A.G.R.A., or whatever her name is. Was. Her - the Other Woman.

  
Which, funnily enough, was what she’d called Sherlock with a gun to his head as she had made her last bloody stand in a usually quiet, unassuming (boring, predictable), suburb of Surrey. And, honestly, Sherlock could have shot her himself for dragging him to the _suburbs_ , of all places. But that dubious honour had fallen to her husband and Sherlock didn’t look forward to the day they had to explain to Abigail how her father had had to put a bullet through her mother’s head. How he had had to pull one old faithful friend from his waistband, in order to save another, yet again. How he finally, inevitably and irrevocably had had to choose between Sherlock and Mary once and for all - and no one who knew them was surprised by how quickly, easily and decisively he had made that choice. Well, no one except perhaps Sherlock. Sherlock, who could only hope that this little girl who was about to come into his life would inherit that same inexplicable fondness for him her father displayed. Sherlock, who hoped Abigail, by the time they (it was always ‘they’ in his head, never just John) had to tell her the truth about Mary, would have come to value him as much as her father seemingly did, and wouldn’t despise the both of them for rendering her motherless.

  
“I get to choose the baby’s name after all,” John had muttered cryptically as his wife’s body was taken away, her final problem his ‘privilege’ in the end, before turning to Sherlock, eyes wide and ocean blue. “I can’t take her back there. My daughter. I can’t take her back to that house Mary and I shared, that nursery we decorated together. I can’t. I won’t.”

  
“So come home then,” Sherlock had said before he could stop himself. Not that he had wanted to stop himself. “Come back to Baker Street. Both of you.”

  
“What? Two men and a baby?”

  
“Why not?”

  
“The Yard would love that.”

  
“It’s neither here nor there what the Yard would love. It’s what you need right now,” Sherlock had heard himself pronounce haughtily, before adding in a softer tone, “What we all need right now.” John had still looked sceptical.

  
“It doesn’t have to be forever,” Sherlock had scrabbled desperately while a little voice inside had cried plaintively, _yes, it does_. “Baker Street will do for now. We can always get a bigger place of our own later.”

  
“We?” John had cocked an eyebrow at Sherlock, eyes now laser-focussed and searching.

  
“Yes … If … If you’d like. Or you can find a place of your own. Just you and the little one. If you’d prefer. But Baker Street’s been good for you in the past. It could be again. If you’d let it.”

  
Still John was not convinced.

  
“I don’t know, Sherlock. I want to say yes. 'Course I want to say yes. But I have a baby to think about now. And you’re, well, you’re you. You’re amazing and brilliant and you’re never boring. But you’re also reckless and careless and have a history of drug use. And I can’t have that crap around my daughter, Sherlock. Do you understand? I can’t have drugs, or someone on drugs, around my daughter.”

  
“Absolutely. I understand, John, I do. There’ll be none of that, I promise. No drugs. I swear it. I won’t need them anyway, if you come home. But you can do weekly tests if you want. And surprise spot checks too; anytime you want. I’m sure Molly would be only too happy to help out there. As for the recklessness, the carelessness? Not with her, never with her, I promise. You have my solemn oath. I vowed to always be there for you, to never let you down again. Let me prove to you I can keep that vow.”

  
And, once again, John Watson had decided to put his trust in Sherlock Holmes.

  
Which was how Sherlock had found himself assembling a nursery in the upstairs bedroom of 221B Baker Street, which had lain empty since John’s last stay there, during his estrangement from Mary, after he had found out she was not who he thought she was. Sherlock had done his research, read every book on childcare out there, and knew he must have made quite a sight traipsing round Mothercare with Mrs. Hudson on one arm and a stack of Babygros over the other. He had bought most of the contents of the baby care aisle in their local Boots, Mrs. Hudson’s warning not to forget to use her loyalty card because she, “… could be doing with the points, dearie”, ringing in his ears and trolley piled dangerously high with nappies, bottles, sterilising fluid and powdered baby milk. Breast may be best, but that wasn’t an option now, obviously. He had even succumbed to a fit of nostalgia and purchased a teddy bear in the form of Winnie the Pooh which had caught his eye and called to mind a similar one from his own childhood that he had loved almost as much as Redbeard. And if he’d bought the cuddly Piglet toy to go with it, well, maybe John Watson’s sentimentality is rubbing off on him, but he couldn’t bear to separate another pair of best friends ever again.

  
John, meanwhile, was spending most of his time at the hospital with Abigail now that her mother had been dealt with and he knew she wouldn’t be coming for any of them. And Sherlock secretly enjoyed building a nest for their little chick to come home to. But something still kept him from accompanying John on any of his visits to the hospital. Fear. Fear that maybe, just maybe, he would look at this part of John and see only Mary - the woman who had taken John from him. The woman who had shot him. The woman who had made a murderer out of him. Yes, Sherlock had killed a man to protect Mary’s secrets (not a very nice man and one who had turned his stomach to be sure, but still a man) and while he had done it for John’s sake, not for her’s, it had made him a murderer nonetheless. John hadn’t pressed him, seeming to understand, and had given Sherlock the time he needed. But now that time is almost up. Abigail is coming home today. They both are. And Sherlock is still terrified.

  
Then there is no more time for even that, as he hears John’s key in the door, John’s footsteps on the stairs, John’s patient voice as he explains how to support the baby’s head. And somehow John’s daughter is in his arms, warm and perfect and fast asleep. Sherlock knows he must’ve been this tiny once, this fragile, but it is impossible for even his brain to wrap itself around that fact.

  
“Is she supposed to be this…”

  
“Careful, that’s my daughter you’re talking about.”

  
Sherlock would roll his eyes if he could tear them away from the exquisite bundle in his arms.

  
“I was going to say 'small’.”

  
“I think some bloke called Shakespeare summed it up best when he said, ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce’.”

John smiles, the pride in his voice unmistakable, before adding, “She’s a Watson, isn’t she? We’re a diminutive clan.”

  
“Oh, there’s nothing diminutive about you, John Watson.”

  
Sherlock smiles then too, eyes finally leaving Abigail’s face only to land on John’s, which has turned a rather fetching shade of pink Sherlock is happy to note. Their eyes lock, as they so often do, and Sherlock feels a familiar, but no less thrilling for that, charge in the air. Then Abigail shifts slightly in his arms, waking up in Baker Street for the first time, and Sherlock looks down from one pair of dark blue eyes straight into another. Eyes he could pick out of millions, that he would never need a DNA test to tell him who’s gene pool they had sprung from, that will be the ruin of him, and knows he will do anything for this precious little person in his arms. He will give his life to protect her if need be. He will kill if that’s what it takes. He wonders how he could have ever doubted, even so minutely, if he would love her, _could_ love her. A new fear grips him then. What if _she_ doesn’t like _him_?! How exactly does one go about impressing a baby?! And then those eyes zero in on him and she smiles, he swears she does. That fond, affectionate smile he already knows so well and something eases in his chest. Just like that she has calmed his jangled nerves and made everything all right and, oh, but if she isn’t John Watson’s daughter through and through!

  
And suddenly every wall Sherlock’s ever built, around himself, around his heart, that has been under siege from the moment Mike Stamford brought a quiet, unassuming (enigmatic, endlessly fascinating) ex-army doctor into the lab at St. Bart’s is being torn down; crumbling into so much dust at his feet. This tiny baby in his arms has found all the cracks already made by her father and has picked up the sledgehammer and continued his work. One blink of her eyes. _Smash!_ One quirk of her lips. _Smash!_ One impossibly small hand clasped around his finger, holding on as if she means to never let go. _Smash!_ And he’s standing there surrounded by dust, and rubble, and _love_. So much love he’s not sure he can bear it. Yet he knows he will. For her, and for John.

  
“Sherlock? Are you all right?” John asks, breaking in on Sherlock’s thoughts, sounding concerned.

  
“Of course I am, John. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  
“Well, it’s just, er … it’s just that you’re crying, Sherlock.”

  
“Don’t be ridiculous, John. I’m not cry… Oh.” Oh damn. He is! He’s _bloody crying_ and he hadn’t even noticed! Sherlock feels his face flush bright red and mutters something about how his hay fever must be playing up again. From the corner of his eye he sees the soft smile John gives him and knows he isn’t buying it.

  
“Yeah, 'course, that must be it. Nothing to do with that little girl you’re holding in your arms as gently as if she were made of crystal and as fiercely as if she were a lifeline.”

  
John seems to take a moment to ponder his next words before inching closer.

  
“I never really forgave her, forgave Mary, for what she did to you, Sherlock. You know that, don’t you? I need you to know that. I only went back for…”

  
“The baby. Yes, John, I know. And I wouldn’t expect anything less of you. You wouldn’t abandon _any_ child, much less your own, to an assassin.”

  
And Sherlock does know, has always known. John Watson could never walk out on a child. You only have to look at how he’s stood by Sherlock all these years to know that.

  
“I’m sorry, Sherlock. I’m so sorry for everything. But I can’t be sorry for her.” John’s voice is tender, but softens even more on the 'her’ as he tilts his head to indicate his daughter.

  
“No, I rather find I can’t either,” Sherlock replies, meaning every word.

  
John raises his eyebrows and laughs, almost disbelievingly. “Already?”

  
“Hmm?” Sherlock is confused. “Already what?”

  
“You’ve only just met and already she’s muscled her way into that heart you claim not to have and sent you head over heels into love at first sight.”

  
“Well, she takes after her father, doesn’t she?” Sherlock knows what he has said. Refuses to regret saying it. Still, he can’t meet John’s eyes for fear of what he will see there. Or not see.

  
The silence stretches out until Sherlock feels it must snap, like one of the strings on a violin that is wound too tight. Well, as he’s the violinist he should be the one to break it, he supposes. He says the first true thing that comes into his head.

  
“I think she likes me, John. Do you think she likes me?”

  
John’s reply is swift, and has the weight of truth behind it. “I think she loves you. But, like you said, she takes after her father.”

  
And, damn it, John can not say such things when Sherlock is holding their baby! He could have dropped her or … oh … wait. _Their_ baby. Hmm. It would seem Sherlock is ready to be presumptuous after all.

  
Visions of bathtimes and bedtimes flash before his eyes. Piggyback rides and little pink bicycles. Or not, because maybe she’ll be the type of girl who likes pink and maybe she won’t and it’s fine, either way, it’s all fine. Playing pirates (Abigail will make a fine Anne Bonny, Sherlock can already tell) and matching rings for him and John and maybe not a house in the suburbs, but a little cottage in the country perhaps. With a garden for Abigail to play in, a vegetable patch for John to potter around and some beehives for Sherlock (he’s always wanted to make his own honey, blame it on that Winnie the Pooh teddy from his childhood). Homework and music lessons. Scraped knees and Christmas mornings. Maybe a Redbeard Mark 2 at last. Or a pony, if that’s what she wants. _Anything she wants_.

  
Then later, getting Uncle Gavin (because it’ll be funny teaching her to call him that instead of Uncle Greg), to run background checks on boyfriends. And/or girlfriends, because one should never assume and it’s fine anyway, it’s all fine. As long as they don’t hurt her, and Sherlock is already thinking up cruel and unusual punishments for anyone who would dare to. And maybe one day it’ll be _her_ child in his arms.

  
Sherlock suddenly feels a keen sympathy for Jennifer Wilson, the victim from the first crime scene he and John ever worked together, who’s daughter, Rachel, had been stillborn, and he aches for her like he has never ached for a stranger before because she was robbed of possibilities such as these and so much more.

  
Then John is speaking again, voice low, but firm. “Put her down.”

  
Sherlock is startled. “Why? Did I do something wrong?”

  
“No. Just put her down a minute.”

  
“I’m not sure I know how,” he admits.

  
“Just support her head as you lay her in the carrycot.”

  
“No, I mean I don’t think I know how to let her out of my arms ever again.”

  
“Not even to let me in them?”

  
Sherlock can tell it must be comical how quickly he learns to put Abigail down by the amused and ever so slightly smug grin on John’s face, but right now it feels too much like he’s scarily close to getting everything he’s ever wanted to really care. Besides, if anyone has the right to be a little self-satisfied it’s John Watson. Sherlock turns and ever so gently, more gently than he’s ever done anything in his life before, places Abigail, still smiling up at him as if she knows what’s about to happen, into the carrycot John brought her upstairs in. He gives her one last lingering look before turning to face her father. Who, as it turns out, is already there, in Sherlock’s space, and only getting closer.

  
“Come here,” John growls, voice rough with something Sherlock feels pooling in his stomach, yet soft with something he feels flooding his chest. And then lips are on his, warm and yielding and deliciously wet, and Sherlock is building walls again. But this time John is right there with him, on the inside looking out, helping him every inch of the way, building a fortress for their own little family. Just the three of them against the rest of the world.

  
The need for air eventually forces them to part lips, but still they cling to each other, breathless, encircled at long last in each other’s arms, as they were always meant to be.

  
John is the first to speak. “Well, that works.”

  
Sherlock feels himself quirk a quizzical eyebrow. “Did you ever doubt it wouldn’t?” He watches as John thinks a moment, a slow smile working its way across that beloved face Sherlock wouldn’t change for the world.

  
“No, I guess I didn’t,” John replies. “Somehow I always knew we could be great together.”

  
“We _are_ great together, John, in every conceivable way. This is just another one of those ways.”

  
John smiles and nods and leans in for another deep kiss, every bit as mind-blowing as the first.

  
“What would you say to Mike Stamford?” John asks the next time they break for air and Sherlock isn’t ashamed to admit he didn’t see that sentence coming.

  
“Um… Thank … you?”

  
John rolls his eyes. “No. Well, yes. We should probably send him a thank you card or something. But what I meant was, what would you say to Mike Stamford as godfather to our daughter?”

  
_Our_ _daughter_. Sherlock feels his heart swell within him. He knows he is positively beaming even as he is crying again. _Our daughter_. Two words that say so much. That let him know this is it for them, John and Abigail and Sherlock, a family evermore. Two words that let him know there are three others John is going to say to him very soon.

  
“I say, I told him I needed a flatmate and he found me a friend, a family and a future. As fairy godfathers go I don’t think _our daughter_ could ask for better.”

  
And as her two fathers share another tender kiss Miss Martha Abigail Lucy Watson, who will become Miss Martha Abigail Lucy Watson-Holmes before too long, gurgles her agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey again! Thanks for reading. I hope you found something you enjoyed here. Personally, I really just wanted to see Sherlock with a baby and for John to choose between Sherlock and Mary. Permanently. And to choose Sherlock, obviously. Please feel free to come say hello, either here in the comments or on tumblr, where I'm also known as novemberhush. Until the next time, take care. :-)


End file.
